Documentary: The Mama Sherpas

A CfM Facebook fan recently posted to share some information about an interesting sounding new documentary about Nurse-Midwives:

The Mama Sherpas follows nurse midwives, the doctors they work with, and their patients, in the DC area over the course of two years. The documentary will provide a personal glimpse into what midwives can bring into the birthing process in the hospital system.

Maher focuses on four “collaborative care” practices where doctors and midwives manage women’s care together. Although there is few collaborative care efforts in the United States, research proves that this method provides better outcomes for mother and baby as well as lowers the C-section rate, which has skyrocketed in recent years.

The documentary’s subject is one that explores two of the most heated debates - Women’s Issues and Health Care. This will be an important contribution to women’s films as a genre because knowledge about medical options has often been withheld from women. Additionally, this film will serve as an educational tool to inform women about their own health and bodies.

For information on partnership or sponsoring visit www.themamasherpas.com. Also, visit http://www.facebook.com/TheMamaSherpas for photos, videos, and updates.

Here are a few ways you can help with our outreach:
1. Add a logo of our film to your website
2. Blog about our film
3. Suggest participants
4. Tweet, Link to our website, and share our Fb page
5. Watch and share the scenes (clips are on the FB page)
6. Suggest possible stories to follow! For instance, “I’d like to see how dad’s prepare for labor.” We’ll add it to our story queue!
7. Host a fundraiser in your community
8. Host an Discussion Group about the film and film scenes centered on a topic area
9. Connect us with a community organization in your area
10. And...

• Check us out on Facebook and Pinterest
• View our channels on Vimeo and YouTube
• Follow us on Tumblr and Twitter
• Join our Email list for updates

Book Review: Arms Wide Open: A Midwife’s Journey

Book Review: Arms Wide Open: A Midwife’s Journey

By Patricia Harman
Beacon Press, 2011
ISBN: 978-0807001387
324 pages, paperback, $16.47 (Amazon)
http://www.beacon.org

Reviewed by Molly Remer, MSW, ICCE, CCCE
http://talkbirth.wordpress.com

I very much enjoyed Patricia Harman’s first book, The Blue Cotton Gown, and was delighted to learn about her new memoir, Arms Wide Open which is, in a sense, both a prequel and sequel to her first memoir. The first half of Arms Wide Open chronicles Patsy’s experiences with homesteading and communal living as a young hippie mother in the 1970’s. It also explores her thoughts and experiences with peace activism and her passion for an eco-friendly life. During this time, she attends her first birth and dives into her midwifery journey and eventually becomes a CNM practicing with her hippie-farmer-turned-OB/GYN husband in West Virginia. Her experiences with their years in a joint women’s health practice are described in The Blue Cotton Gown. Readers who, like me, wondered what happened where The Blue Cotton Gown left off, can find out in the second half of Arms Wide Open, which is a narrative of Patsy’s ongoing work with women through 2009 and includes her emotional painful moments in her marriage, as her husband struggles with fears of another lawsuit as well as with chronic pelvic pain patients who abuse his trust (chronic pelvic pain is a specialty of their practice).

I did feel as if there was a large chunk of story missing as the book somewhat abruptly skips from 1978 to 2008. We miss learning about any of Patsy’s experiences in nurse-midwifery school, nor do we learn much about her practice when she was a CNM attending births. The book transitions from her years as a self-taught midwife considering going to school to become a CNM, straight to her present-day years as a CNM in a private women’s health practice.

Harman’s writing style is lyrical and engaging as well as candid. The book is based on personal journals and reading it feels like eavesdropping on someone’s very private thoughts and feelings. The book is much more of a look at a woman’s feelings about her life, than it is a “manifesto” about birth or about the practice of midwifery. In this manner, I feel like you receive a much more complete picture of a midwife’s life and journey, rather than reading a sequence of birth stories. Patsy has a lot of life in addition to birth. While definitely not a “feel good” book, Arms Wide Open is a deeply touching and very honest exploration of one woman’s personal journey in life, love, motherhood, and midwifery.

--

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review purposes.

The Media & Midwifery

On Thursday, a good article called "Media out of focus on midwifery" was published in the New Haven Register. Written by a professor of midwifery at Yale, the article includes some excellent observations such as:

"It is puzzling that these stories often do not cite well-documented evidence about outcomes of the practice of midwifery in the United States, nor invite representatives of the American College of Nurse-Midwives or the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives to comment."

and my favorite,

"Women are not seeking 'designer' births. They are looking for humanistic care during pregnancy, labor and birth and are increasingly having difficulty finding that in many hospitals."

--
Molly
CfM Blogger

The Big Push Press Release: Physicians Take Anti-Midwife Smear Campaign to the Airwaves

I was getting ready to write about this myself--thinking of calling it, "ACOG Makes a New Friend"--but the indomitable Big Push Campaign beat me to it and their release is so pointed that I have nothing more to add!

--------------------
If you have difficulty viewing this message, please visit the PushNewsroom.

Home Birth Mothers, Celebrities, Insulted on National TV FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 11, 2009) – Referring to women who choose to give birth in out-of-hospital settings as "hedonistic" and likening childbirth to a "spa treatment," members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a trade group representing the professional and financial interests of OB/GYNs, took their anti-midwife campaign to the airwaves in a Today Show segment rife with insults, stereotypes, and misinformation, using one family's tragedy as a platform for the organization's well-funded assault against choices in childbirth. "About the only thing ACOG has right is that women are choosing out-of-hospital deliveries in record numbers," said Steff Hedenkamp of The Big Push for Midwives Campaign. "What Erin Tracy and other apologists for the group's anti-midwife position fail to see is that one of the forces driving women to seek out-of-hospital care is the paternalistic, profit-driven model of maternity care that far too many of its own members provide." During the segment ACOG reiterated its claim, which has been thoroughly debunked by a large and growing body of medical literature, that out-of-hospital delivery is unsafe. Describing women who choose to give birth in private homes and freestanding birth centers as "hedonistic" mothers who knowingly put the lives of their babies at risk for the sake of an "experience" they believe will be like a "spa treatment," members of the group echoed last year's position statement claiming that women who choose out-of-hospital deliveries base their decisions on what's "fashionable" or "trendy." "ACOG clings to this ridiculous fantasy that women choose to deliver their babies outside of the hospital because they want to be like Ricki Lake, Demi Moore or Meryl Streep and that if women would only watch enough fear-mongering stories on morning television they'll be brainwashed back into hospitals," said Katherine Prown, Campaign Manager of The Big Push for Midwives. "Insulting our intelligence and promoting policies that deny us choices in maternity care are not exactly winning strategies for stemming the tide of women seeking alternatives to standard OB care." Earlier this year, a New York City couple lost their baby during a planned home birth under the care of a Certified Nurse-Midwife. Licensed and regulated in all 50 states, Certified Nurse-Midwives are trained to provide hospital-based maternity care. By contrast, Certified Professional Midwives, who undergo specialized clinical training in out-of-hospital birth, are legally authorized to provide care in 26 states, although outdated regulations effectively prevent them qualifying for licensure in the state of New York. Legislation to license and regulate Certified Professional Midwives is currently pending in an additional 18 states, despite staunch opposition from the American Medical Association, which has joined with ACOG in adopting position statements that would deny families who choose out-of-hospital maternity care legal access to nationally credentialed midwives with specialized training to provide it. The Big Push for Midwives Campaign represents thousands of grassroots advocates in the United States who support expanding access to Certified Professional Midwives and out-of-hospital maternity care. The mission of The Big Push includes educating national policymakers about the reduced costs and improved outcomes associated with out-of-hospital birth and advocating for including the services of Certified Professional Midwives in health care reform. Media inquiries: Katherine Prown (414) 550-8025, katie@thebigpushformidwives.org ### The Big Push for Midwives Campaign | 2300 M Street, N.W., Suite 800 Washington, D.C. 20037-1434 | TheBigPushforMidwives.org

Grassroots Network: Sign NARM Petition TODAY!

Dear Friends,

This message is a reminder about the NARM petition to the ACNM regarding educational routes to the CPM credential (see GNM 904020). NARM will close the petition on Wednesday in order to present it to the ACNM leadership at the end of the week. So, if you haven't signed yet, read the note below and follow the link to add your name, and comment if you wish!

Sincerely,
Susan Hodges "gatekeeper"

From NARM:

Dear Friend of Midwives,

Only ONE more day to add your name to the NARM petition in support of all routes to midwifery education. NARM's hope is that this amazing response will send a clear message to the ACNM that the time has come to end internal strife and work together to move midwifery forward. By Wednesday, NARM will close the petition and prepare to present it to the ACNM Executive Committee at the end of the week at the annual ACNM convention in Seattle. If you haven't signed it yet, NOW is the time. If you have already signed it, please ask any additional family, friends, and colleagues to sign on. Let's hit 5000 names! Sign the petition here.

NARM has taken a stand in support of all routes of midwifery education, including a formal, structured apprenticeship. We would like to be able to inform you of our progress with influencing the ACNM to change its Position Statement against apprenticeship education. We also know that as we work to make more CPMs available to more women, we will continue to face opposition to our training, our standards of individualized and woman-centered practice, and our very existence as a viable profession in the US. Your voice is what gives us the power and authority to demand a seat at the table over health care reform, access to quality maternity care for all women, and implementation of programs on the state and federal level that will enable more women to have the choice to hire CPMs for their care.

If you would like to be notified of the results of this petition, please take a moment to register your contact information into a protected database controlled by NARM that will allow us to directly contact you with this information and other opportunities to take similar action at the state and federal level for midwifery. You will be able to select areas of interest to you and also remove yourself at any time from our subscription list. NARM pledges to never share your name with any commercial entity and to only use your contact info for the purpose of direct notification of urgent issues and updates regarding promotion of the CPM credential. Again, thank you for your continued support and for helping us to preserve apprentice based midwifery education in the US.

Join NARM's protected advocacy list here.

Midwives and Students! One more way to get connected is through the new NARM Forum. This forum is for open discussions about all things related to CPMs and the women they serve. Please join us!

Thank you!

The NARM Board

[Please feel free to forward this]